Chapter 2A second A.I.F.

INEVITABLY
the immediate cause of a war is some action which, when
isolated, seems of petty importance beside the real causes. In Europe in
1939 the question whether or not there would be war was reduced finally
to whether or not the German Government would order its army to invade
Poland. Such an invasion would defy an undertaking by the United
Kingdom Government to support Poland against "any action which clearly
threatened Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly
considered it vital to resist with their national forces."1 In the early
morning of 1st September German forces crossed the Polish frontier, and
at 11 a.m. on Sunday, 3rd September, an ultimatum by the British Government
demanding the withdrawal of the German forces expired. Immediately
Mr Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany. The
responsibility for deciding the exact hour at which the world is to plunge
into war rests on the political leaders. That decision made, there is an
interval while the air is crowded by telephone, cable, and wireless signals,
generally pre-arranged, to governments, senior officials and, eventually, to
citizens who must report immediately for duty.

Thus, in Australia, soon after Chamberlain's announcement, Mr T. J.
Hawkins of the Naval Secretariat informed the Secretary of the Defence
Department, Mr Shedden,2 that a naval signal had been received containing
the order: "Commence hostilities at once against Germany." Shedden
informed Mr F. Strahan, Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, at
Canberra, that although the pre-arranged signal from the Dominions Office
announcing the outbreak of war had not arrived, this naval signal had
been picked up. Within an hour a meeting of the Executive Council had
been convened in the Prime Minister's room at the Commonwealth offices
in Melbourne and the issue of a proclamation declaring the existence of a
state of war approved. At 9.15 p.m. the voice of the Australian Prime
Minister, Mr Menzies, was heard by listeners throughout Australia. "It is
my melancholy duty", he said, "to inform you officially that, in consequence
of a persistence by Germany, in her invasion of Poland, Great
Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also
at war." After a lucid and simply-phrased account of the events in Europe
that had immediately led to the declaration of war, he appealed to the
people for calmness, resoluteness, confidence and hard work. He made
no suggestion that Australia could have taken any other course than to
stand beside Great Britain. At 10.14 a proclamation was issued in
Canberra that Australia was at war, and, at 10.25 Mr Shedden signed
a memorandum to the Secretary of the Military Board, as to other Federal

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departments, stating that "the action specified in the Commonwealth War
Book for the War Stage (including that for the Precautionary Stage not
yet taken) should be initiated forthwith"; at 11.47 a message that war
had begun was sent to all military districts.

The action to be taken by Federal departments when war broke out
was set out in the "Commonwealth War Book", a thick loose-leaf volume
which had been prepared by the senior staffs of the three fighting Services
and the civil departments under the supervision of Mr Shedden and officers
of the Department of Defence. The staffs of each of the fighting Services
had prepared a companion volume, the army's being the "War Book of
the Australian Military Forces" in which the army's plans were described
in greater detail.

The plans of the little Australian Army provided for three stages of
readiness. The signal for the adoption of the first stage was to be a decision
by the Government that a state of tension existed. In this period the
regular troops would man the coast defences and other precautionary
measures would be taken. When the Government learnt that war was
imminent a second precautionary series of preparations was to be adopted
which would include preliminary steps to prepare for a war that would
include the Far East. The plans anticipated that, on the actual declaration
of war, the Government would direct the Chiefs of Staff of the fighting
Services to prepare for either a war that was likely to be restricted to the
Middle East and Europe or against a war in which Japan was an enemy.
If the war seemed likely to be confined to Europe and the Mediterranean
the War Book plan anticipated that the Chiefs of Staff would be asked
only to defend vital centres against raids. In a war in which Japan or
any other Eastern Power was an enemy the Chiefs of Staff would be called
upon to order full mobilisation and make ready to resist invasion.

Already on 24th August, in anticipation of a cablegram from London
warning that war was imminent, the Defence Committee--that is to say
the Chiefs of Staff of the three Services and the Secretary of the Defence
Department--had met in Melbourne and decided to advise the Government
to take certain precautions as soon as the message arrived. The
committee recommended, for example, that additional troops be sent to
Darwin, some guns installed at Port Kembla to protect the steel works
there, and guards placed on certain "vulnerable points" such as factories,
wireless stations and railway centres. On the 25th warning signals had
been sent to the military districts, the commanders of independent formations,
and the isolated garrisons at Darwin and Port Moresby informing
them that "a state of tension" existed with Germany ; some militia officers
of the heavy artillery were called up; the emergency coast defences were
installed at Port Kembla and forty-four regular soldiers were flown to
Darwin, where the commandant was instructed to enlist a local militia
force of up to 250 men. Arrangements were made to send rifles and
ammunition to Port Moresby and Rabaul. On 1st September the following
long-awaited warning telegram arrived from London: "Precautionary Stage
Adopted Against Germany and Italy." Next day proclamations were issued

General Blamey and senior leaders of the A.I.F. at the embarkation of the second convoy in Melbourne in April 1940. Left to right: Lieut-Colonel F. H. Berryman, Colonel S. F. Rowell, Colonel S. R. Burston, Licut-General Sir Thomas Blamey, Lieut-General J. D. Lavarack.

(Australian War Memorial photo)
A draft of Victorian recruits for the 6th Division entraining at
Flemington for Puckapunyal, 2nd November 1939.

declaring that a danger of war existed and formally calling out the citizen
forces. By 8.15 a.m. on 2nd September all military districts had been
ordered to man the coast defences though, for the present, only with
permanent troops. On the 5th, after the formal declaration of war, it was
announced that militiamen would be called up 10,000 at a time for
sixteen days to provide relays of guards on "vulnerable points."3

These were mere machine measures, and, since there seemed to be no
sign of attack by Japan, the eyes of most Australians were fixed on a war
in which they might have to shoulder their rifles and defend the status quo
against Germany.

When the Federal Parliament met on 6th September Opposition
members offered no criticism of the Government's action in entering the
war; it was soon evident that the burning question was whether or not
Australia would send forces overseas--the problem which had coloured
every debate on defence in that Parliament for more than twenty years.
In a short opening statement the Prime Minister made no reference to
that possibility, but the leader of the Opposition, Mr Curtin, who spoke
next, said:

there ought not to be, but there may be, two major points of difference between
the Government and ourselves. One is conscription, to which we are opposed. The
other does not arise, in view of last night's pronouncement by the Government that
it does not contemplate expeditionary forces. Those two issues are, as the Government
knows and as the country knows, issues upon which the Opposition is pledged, and
we are determined to maintain the views and the principles for which we have stood
and fought while we have been a party.4

In reply, the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Henry Gullett,5 said that
he knew of no statement that the Government did not propose to send
expeditionary forces overseas. "The Government had not yet seriously
discussed the question", he added.

The Government was allowing its decision as to what form its assistance
to Britain would take to await consideration of advice from the British
Government. That advice arrived on 8th September in a long cablegram
from the Dominions Office expressing the opinions of the British Chiefs
of Staff. The Dominions Office based its recommendations on two alternative
hypotheses, first "that Japan is not only neutral but adopting a friendly
attitude towards the democratic countries", and secondly, "that Japan is
neutral and reserving her attitude towards democratic countries." The
Australian Government was warned that there must be preparation for a
long war. "We therefore hope," the cablegram continued, "that Australia
will exert her full national effort including preparation of her forces with
a view to the dispatch of an expeditionary force." It was not yet possible

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to make any suggestion to the Commonwealth Government about the
destination and composition of any expeditionary forces which they might
see fit to provide, but the Commonwealth Government might like to
consider whether it would prefer to relieve United Kingdom units and
formations in, say, Singapore, Burma, or India as brigades became
available, or would prefer to delay until complete divisions could be sent
to a main theatre. The policy of the United Kingdom Government, the
cablegram stated, was to avoid a rush of volunteers, but she would
nevertheless welcome at once, for enlistment in United Kingdom units,
technical personnel, such as fitters, electricians, mechanics, instrument
mechanics, motor vehicle drivers and "officers with similar qualifications
and medical officers." If Japan gave no evidence of a friendly attitude, it
might be thought unwise for Australia to dispatch an expeditionary force
overseas but the Commonwealth Government could assist by holding
formations ready at short notice for reinforcement of Singapore, New
Zealand, or British and French islands in the Western Pacific.

It is probable that uncertainty about Japanese policy was not the only
reason for the British Government's hesitation to request military aid in
the main theatre of war and the somewhat cautious tone of the
communication. Britain lacked military equipment, and knew that the
Dominions could not fully arm their own expeditionary forces; indeed
that Australia, for example, was still awaiting the delivery of modest
orders from Britain that had been lodged four years before. This general
shortage had already set up in Britain a struggle for manpower between
the fighting Services.

Until the Munich crisis Britain had been planning "a war of limited
liability" in which only five regular divisions would be prepared for
service on the Continent. After Munich, however, Britain reached an
agreement with France whereby she would have thirty-two divisions
(including six of regulars) ready for oversea service within a year after
the outbreak of a war. This entailed doubling the territorial army; yet
the equipment of the unexpanded territorial army was then no better than
that of the Australian militia. After war broke out the British Government
decided to prepare to equip fifty-five divisions--her own thirty-two and
twenty-three from the Dominions, India and "prospective Allies."6 This
estimate was evidently based on an estimate that contingents from the
Dominions would be on the scale of 1918, when there were six Australian
divisions (including one mounted), four Canadian divisions, one "Anzac"
mounted division and one New Zealand division in the field.7

It was already evident that it would be impossible for Australia to be
at war and Australians to stand aloof. For example, to have withheld

--36--

the ships of the Australian Navy, if it was decided that they were more
urgently needed in foreign waters, would have been morally indefensible,
because, under the treaties of naval limitation which had expired only
three years before, these ships had been reckoned as part of British naval
strength. Moreover, for several years Australia had been sending batches
of trained pilots to serve in the Royal Air Force and these young men
were now with their squadrons on active service. Also the nucleus staff
of an Australian flying-boat squadron was in England waiting to take
delivery of their boats and fly them to Australia, and the British Government
specifically asked that these men and their aircraft be allowed to
remain in England at the Air Ministry's disposal. Could these men be
brought home leaving others to fly their boats in action? The Ministers
could be certain that if no expeditionary force was raised no regulation
could prevent Australians from finding their way to other Allied countries
to enlist; and the British Government had already asked that professional
men and technicians be allowed to volunteer for service in the British
forces.

Not all Labour leaders were opposed to voluntary service overseas. For
example, early in September Mr E. Dwyer-Gray, the Labour Premier of
Tasmania, had said that his Government would approve the sending of a
volunteer expeditionary force to New Guinea and Singapore, and on 15th
September a meeting of the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council
rejected a proposal that, if a voluntary force was raised, it should be used
only in Australian territory.8 Nevertheless, most of those Labour members
who broached the subject in the Federal Parliament on 6th September
opposed an expedition on the ground that every man would be needed for
home defence. "Australia, with its huge territory and sparse population,"
said Mr Ward, for example, "cannot afford to send men out of this
country to take part in the conflict overseas. They will be required here
to defend Australia.... I believe that if we defend Australia, we shall
do all that can reasonably be expected of us."9 Mr Blackburn said that
he opposed voluntary recruiting for overseas service "as being the first
step towards compulsion."1 But Senator R. V. Keane said that "if ever
there was an occasion on which the Labour party was interested in an
overseas war it is now, because it is vitally concerned with the overthrow
of that system which has plunged the world into this Armageddon."2

Within a day after the declaration of war by Britain and France the
Japanese Government shed a little light on its policy by informing the
belligerents of its intention to remain not "neutral" but "independent."

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Thus, while fear that Japan would take advantage of the preoccupation of
Britain and France in Europe had always to be taken into account, it
appeared that, for the present, either she was too heavily committed in
China--and Manchuria where a minor war against Russian frontier troops
was in progress--or she intended to wait and see how affairs developed
in Europe. Nevertheless plans for sending Australian expeditionary forces
abroad had to take into account the possibility of both of Germany's
allies, Italy and Japan, being at war. In that event Britain and France
would be outnumbered at sea and, unaided, could not command the
oceans both in the West and the East. Moreover, the British and French
Air Forces were inferior both in Europe and the East to those of their
enemies or potential enemies.

In addition to fear of Japan, lack of equipment, and the opposition
of the Labour party, there were other brakes on the sending abroad of
a military force. One of these was the widespread conviction that, in the
coming war, armies would play a far less important part than in the past.
It had become apparent between the wars that the air forces would inflict
greater damage in a future struggle than in 1914-18 and also that the
increasing elaboration of the equipment of each of the fighting Services
would require that a greater proportion of a belligerent 's manpower than
hitherto would be needed in the factories and in the maintenance units of
the forces. Enthusiasts had expounded these points with such extravagant
eloquence that the impression had become fairly general that armies, and,
in particular, infantry would play a minor part in the coming war, an
impression which air force leaders and industrialists had done much to
encourage.3 An additional brake on a full-scale war effort was the opinion
not noised abroad but nevertheless widely entertained at the time by leaders
in politics and industry in Australia as in England--and Germany--that
an uneasy peace would be negotiated leaving Germany holding her gains
in eastern and central Europe.

However, a chain of events had been set in motion and there could be
no arresting it. War had been declared; Britain was in danger; Australians
should be there. To probably a majority of Australians the problem was
seen in as simple terms as that. And on 9th September the New Zealand
Government, which faced a similar situation, announced that it had
decided to raise a "special military force" for service in or beyond New
Zealand, and as a first step 6,600 volunteers were to be enlisted. In
Australia most of the newspapers had from the beginning urged that an
expeditionary force be formed, and as days passed and no decision was
announced, their demands became more vehement. "The outward complacency
of a Federal Government actually engaged in carrying on a
war," declared the Sydney Morning Herald, for example, on 14th September,
"is beginning to arouse more than astonishment among the Australian public."

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Finally, on the 15th, after Parliament had risen for the week-end, Mr
Menzies, in a regular Friday night broadcast, announced that a force of
one division and auxiliary units would be created--20,000 men in all--for service
either at home or abroad "as circumstances permit." At the
same time, he said, the militia would be called up in two drafts each of
40,000 to receive a month's continuous training, which would be extended
if the situation demanded. The new infantry division, he said, would
consist of one brigade group from New South Wales, one from Victoria
and one from the smaller States (as had the 1st Division of the A.I.F.
of 1914). Privates and N.C.O's must be over 20 and under 35, subalterns
under 30, captains under 35, majors under 40 and lieut-colonels under
45, and preference would be given to single men not in "essential civil
jobs."

We are at war (he said) as part of the British Empire. Our strategic position
may very well change from time to time according to the alignment of the combatant
nations. At present the prime necessity is to ensure the defence of Australia
itself. But it would be wrong to assume that throughout the duration of the war
our duty would continue to be as circumscribed as that.... It may be that, under
some circumstances, Australian forces might be used to garrison some of the Pacific
islands, to cooperate with New Zealand, to release British troops at Singapore, or
at other posts around the Indian Ocean. Under other circumstances it may be
practicable to send Australian forces to Europe.

In the House of Representatives five days later he emphasised that he
considered that, at least at first, the provision of a military force would
be of secondary importance.

We have been in very close touch with the Government of the United Kingdom
(he said) as to the most appropriate and effective means of rendering assistance,
and we know from the communications which have passed between us, and from
our study of the position generally, that--particularly during the first year of the
war, when the production of military aircraft in Great Britain and France will be
rapidly expanding, and when it may be anticipated that air warfare will be of
predominating importance--the greatest possible assistance that can be given to
Great Britain will be in the provision of trained air crews.4

In a broadcast address a week later he said "that Great Britain did
not want Australia to send a large force of men abroad" and expressed
the opinion that "any active help that Australia gave would be in the
air." "Every step we take," he added, "must be well considered, and we
must not bustle around in all directions as if we were just trying to create
an illusion of activity. We must see that every step is a step forward."5
On the other hand, on 8th September the British Government had spoken
not of a division but divisions.

An additional curb on plans for a possible expeditionary force was
provided by the fact that the army staff, acutely aware of their lack of
equipment and the time it would take to acquire it, were anxious not to

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lose their bird in the hand--the militia--whose strength was already being
threatened by a policy of withdrawing men from it to serve in industry.
When the people were told that the militia would be called up 10,000
at a time to continue training and to guard vulnerable points it was
announced that "experts" would cull out militiamen in reserved or
exempted occupations. Before the actual medical examination and attestation
of recruits for the special force began a list of these occupations was
published. This list, which followed closely a similar British list prepared
as a necessary step towards rapid and full national mobilisation, military
and industrial, was applied in Australia--a country which at this time
was not contemplating such mobilisation, but merely the raising of forces
far smaller relatively than European nations maintained in peace. It
provided, for example, that tradesmen such as shearers and carpenters
would not be accepted if they were over 30 ; foremen if over 25; brewing
leading hands over 25; there was a complete ban on the enlistment of
engineers holding degrees or diplomas. The list occupied three columns
of small type in the newspapers. Later it was provided that men in
reserved occupations might enlist if it was guaranteed that they would
be employed in their trade capacity.

Added reason for the army staff's anxiety about the militia was provided
on 10th October--four days after Hitler's peace offer to Britain and
France--when the War Cabinet decided not to fill gaps caused by enlistment
in the A.I.F. and discharges to reserved occupations. Already the
Government had decided to allow married men to transfer to the reserve
after one month's training. These decisions threatened to reduce the militia
by half, since 10,000 vacancies in the A.I.F. had been allotted to it,
more than 6,000 men had been lost to the reserved occupations in the
first few weeks of the war, and an additional 16,000 men of the force
were married.

In September 1939 the militia had a strength of about 80,000, that
is to say about 40 per cent of the full mobilisation strength of the four
infantry and two cavalry divisions, the independent brigades and ancillary
units. Considerably more than half the citizen soldiers of September 1939
had been in the force less than a year. All divisional and brigade commanders
and most unit commanders had served as regimental officers
in the war of 1914-18 and the junior officers had been trained under
these experienced leaders,6 but the strength in veteran leaders in the senior
ranks was offset by an extreme shortage of regular officers to fill key staff
posts. A divisional commander was fortunate if he had two Staff Corps
officers on his own staff, four as brigade majors and four or five as
adjutants. Substantially the force was armed with the weapons which the
A.I.F. had brought back in 1919; the infantry with rifles, and Lewis and
Vickers machine-guns; the artillery regiments with 18-pounder field guns
and 4.5-inch howitzers. Most of the signal and engineer equipment was

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obsolete nor was there enough to meet active service conditions. Obsolescence
and deficiency are relative terms; there were armies in Europe
which were not so well equipped as the Australian militia, but Australian s
judged their force by the standard of the British regular army. There were
not enough anti-tank and modern anti-aircraft guns in Australia fully to
equip one unit. The tank corps consisted of a small training section
with a few out-dated tanks.

The only weapons that the Australian factories were manufacturing
for the army were anti-aircraft guns of an out-dated type, rifles and
Vickers machine-guns, though it was hoped soon to be producing Bren
light machine-guns to replace the Lewis guns which were already decrepit
and would soon be quite worn out, and machine-gun carriers and 3-inch
mortars had been ordered. If the militia and the special force were to be
modernly armed from Australian sources it would be necessary to manufacture
field, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, mortars, pistols, grenades,
armoured fighting vehicles, a wide variety of other technical gear, and
thousands of waggons. To meet these requirements would demand expenditure
on factories and war material on a far higher scale than Australian
Governments had hitherto contemplated.

On 29th September Mr Casey, the Minister for Supply and Development,
submitted to the War Cabinet (which had been established the
previous day) a proposal for capital expenditure on new munitions projects
amounting to £2,755,000 "to bring munitions production up to a condition
whereby the war may be prosecuted effectively." The largest item
but one was £750,000 to build a second explosives filling factory at,
perhaps, Albury, because the existence of only one such factory which a
single air attack or a single accident might put out of action had long
been an anxiety. This was agreed to; but the largest item, £855,000, to
extend the Commonwealth's only gun factory and its ammunition and
explosives factories so that they could produce 25-pounder field guns and
ammunition, was not approved. A few weeks later a proposal to buy 2,860
motor vehicles, including 664 motor cycles, for the militia and 784,
including 180 motor cycles, for the new division was approved. Those
numbers, however, would not equip either force for war, but only for
training, the vehicles on the war establishment of one infantry division at
that time being about 3,000.

In this way plans for adequately equipping the army in general and the
A.I.F. in particular were allowed to proceed at only cautious pace. The
Treasury officials seemed resolved that the war should not be an excuse
for undue extravagance on the part of the Services. Fortunately Casey's
department persisted in the proposal to make 25-pounder guns and, on
17th January, succeeded in obtaining Cabinet assent to the expenditure
of £400,000 (less than half the original sum) to provide for the manufacture
of 25-pounder field guns and 2-pounder anti-tank guns. There had
then, however, been a delay of four months in initiating the manufacture
of modern field guns, in spite of the fact that at the outset, in September,
the War Cabinet had been told that the guns with which the militia was

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equipped were "obsolete" although "quite effective for local defence".
This was a somewhat optimistic description of them, and, in any event,
there were not enough to equip the A.I.F. as well as the home army, as
will be seen below.

In February the Treasury urged the War Cabinet that a brake be
applied to orders of vehicles for the A.I.F. "pending further consideration
of the sphere in which 6th Division is to operate and if mechanical trans port
is to accompany it overseas". There was some anxiety among the
officials lest the shipping of vehicles to the Middle East might reduce the
space available for wheat cargoes, and, in the same month, the Board of
Business Administration suggested that orders for army vehicles be related
to the shipping space available on the Middle East route. Whatever may
have been the relative value to the war effort of a shipload of wheat and
a shipload of military vehicles, the Treasury officials' notion that the
question whether or not the A.I.F. was equipped with vehicles should be
deferred until its destination was known was a strange one. The implications
appear to be that, in certain areas of the Middle East and Europe,
vehicles are not needed by an army, and that, in war, once an army is
placed in an area it remains there for the duration.

Thus, the Government had called for volunteers for an expeditionary
force, but on a minimum scale; and had approved a plan of militia training,
but one which would take only 40,000 men at a time away from fields
and factories. By 15th September it had approved expenditure on the
fighting Services and munitions amounting to over £40,000,000--as
much, as Mr Menzies pointed out, as Australia had spent in 1915-16
"with the war in full blast and large forces overseas"--and the Services
were asking for more and more. "I don't say this with any pleasure," said
Menzies, "because I know what it means, and what a burden it means
placing on you. But it completely disproves the ill-founded and damaging
suggestion that Australia is hanging back." Relative to pre-war military
expenditure it was indeed a huge sum, but, in relation to the demands
that would be made if full mobilisation became necessary, it was small
indeed; and, in any circumstances, could be based only on an assumption
that the greater part of the equipment the Australian forces needed could
be bought from Britain.

Throughout October a decision about the future of the Second A.I.F.,
as the new force was named, was deferred. In a submission to the War
Cabinet the three Chiefs of Staff7 emphasised the danger of attack by
Japan, pointing out that the advice from the British Government had
disregarded the possibility that Japan would be hostile. They said, however,
that, by the end of December, if Japan was friendly, battalions or brigades
of the A.I.F., though little more than rifles and bayonets could be spared
to arm them, could be sent overseas to continue training and relieve

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United Kingdom garrison units, but with a proviso that when fully trained
and equipped they be reassembled in an Australian division. If Japan was
hostile, no troops could be sent out of Australia except to reinforce Far
Eastern garrisons and localities "as a measure of Australian defence."
The Chiefs of Staff recommended an increase totalling 15,000 to 20,000
in the peace establishment of the militia, and advised that, after the establishment
of the first division, further recruitment for the special force be
by way of the militia with very few exceptions. They opposed the recruitment
of skilled technicians for the British Army. After considering these
recommendations the War Cabinet decided, on 25th October, to inform
the Dominions Office that the period needed to train the Second A.I.F.
even up to the stage where it might be possible to send units abroad for
garrison duty and further training would "afford a further opportunity
for the international position to clarify itself as to the possibility of the
dispatch of an expeditionary force from Australia." Meanwhile the staffing
and organisation of that force proceeded. It was named the 6th Division,
there being four infantry divisions and the elements of a fifth in the militia.

When war began the senior general on the active list of the Australian
Army was Major-General Gordon Bennett,8 52 years of age, who had
not held a command for seven years. After him came Major-General Sir
Thomas Blamey, 55, who had been on the unattached list for two years,
and then Major-General Lavarack, 53, who had been Chief of the General
Staff since 1935 and had been on a tour of duty abroad since May 1939,
while Lieut-General Squires acted both as Inspector-General and Chief of
the General Staff. Next on the list were the Adjutant-General, Sir Carl
Jess,1 55, who had been a brigade commander in France when the previous
war ended, Major-General Phillips,2 57, Major-General Drake-Brockman,3
55, commanding the 3rd Division and Major-General Mackay,4 57, commanding
the 2nd. Of these all but Bennett, Drake-Brockman and Mackay
were or had been regular soldiers. Unless the Cabinet were either notably
to disregard seniority or to recall a retired officer, it was from among these
senior major-generals that the commander of the new force must be
chosen. To find a leader aged, say, 50 or less, it would have been necessary
to go far down the list to colonels of the Staff Corps such as V.A.H.

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Sturdee,5 the Director of Staff Duties at Army Headquarters, or senior
militia infantry brigadiers such as L. J. Morshead6 or A. S. Allen.7

One of the senior candidates, Blamey, not only had the very substantial
qualification of having been General Monash's chief staff officer in France
in 1918, but was well known to two leading members of the Cabinet.
Mr Menzies had been Attorney-General in the Victorian Government
when Blamey had been the Commissioner of Police and had then been
impressed by Blamey's firmness and clear thinking; Mr Casey had served
as a junior to Blamey on Gallipoli and in France on the staff of the 1st
Australian Division and the Australian Corps. These two ministers had
decided at the time of the Munich crisis in 1938 that, by reason of both
his ability and experience, Blamey was the man to command the Australian
Army if war broke out. In this decision they had the support of at least
one senior leader of the First A.I.F. Sir Brudenell White,8 who had been
General Birdwood's chief of staff, and later Chief of the General Staff in
Australia, was not consulted but, after Blamey had been appointed, he
said that he considered that Blamey was the only man who could cope
with the political aspects of the task of a commander of a Dominion
force overseas and, particularly, would be able to preserve the integrity of
an Australian force abroad. White feared that unless a man was chosen
who could deal firmly with such problems the Australian division would
soon be split up into brigades by the British commander in the area and
the force would begin to lose its identity and unity.

This decision passed over Bennett, a gallant and able fighting leader,
but one whom some senior soldiers considered to lack the tactfulness needed
in the commander of a Dominion force which had to cooperate closely
with British and Allied armies. He had become widely known as an
outspoken critic of weaknesses in Australian defence--evidence of his
enthusiasm for his country and its army. It was a sharp disappointment
also to Lavarack, when he arrived at Perth on 27th September on his way
from England, to be told by Squires that he was not to command the 6th
Division, but that Blamey probably would be selected. He learnt from
Squires also that Squires himself was to be appointed to replace Lavarack
permanently as Chief of the General Staff, the post of Inspector-General
having lapsed, and that the Prime Minister had "announced (without
reference to anybody) that the commands in that division would go to
militiamen." Lavarack was able to reflect that his service as a regular
officer had been longer than Blamey's, that it had included four years as

--44--

Chief of the General Staff, the most important post the peace-time army
could offer. However, he had not won the confidence of the Ministers
to the extent that Blamey had, nor--and this was to produce consequences
which cannot be overlooked--did Blamey have as much confidence in
Lavarack as in some of his juniors. The War Cabinet, at its first meeting
on 28th September, appointed Squires as Chief of the General Staff,
Blamey to command the 6th Division and Lavarack to the Southern
Command.9

The new appointments all became effective on 13th October, on which
day both Blamey and Lavarack were promoted to the rank of lieut-general,
and the officers who had been chosen for the four new commands--Northern, Eastern,
Southern and Western--took up their appointments.
All of these were regular officers, and thus, while the principal staff officers
at Army Headquarters and the four area commanders and their senior staff
officers were regulars, the commander of the 6th Division and the generals
leading the six home-service divisions were all militiamen.

Menzies' statement that the commanders in the new force would be
provided by the militia had caused chagrin not only to Squires and
Lavarack, but to the regular officers generally. For nearly twenty years a
sense of injustice and frustration had grievously affected the outlook of
this corps. Not until 1935 and 1936 had most of the senior Duntroon
graduates regained in the peace-time army the substantive rank and the
pay they had won in the A.I.F. A number of their most enterprising
members had resigned and had joined the British or the Indian Armies
where they had gained more rapid promotion than those who remained
in Australia. Promotion of militia officers had been relatively rapid so that
some had risen from the ranks to lieut-colonels in ten years, while it had
been usual for a Staff Corps officer, after having spent eight years as a
lieutenant, to remain in the rank of captain for ten or, perhaps, twelve.1
The pre-war plan for the overseas force had provided that one-third of
the commanding officers might be chosen from the Staff Corps; the corps
mistakenly interpreted the Prime Minister's statement as meaning that
regular officers were to be debarred from commands in the new A.I.F.
In fact, however, before the 6th Division was fully organised one Staff
Corps officer had been appointed to command a unit,2 and, before the
division went into action one of its brigadiers and several commanding
officers were regulars. But the effect of the omission of regular officers
from the first list of appointments to A.I.F. commands was to make the

--45--

corps more firmly resolved than ever to defend its interests--in fact to
make it to a greater degree a compact and defensive group within the
army as a whole.3

The commander of the new division, General Blamey, was born in 1884
at Wagga, in New South Wales, the son of a rural worker. After working
as a schoolteacher he obtained in 1906 a commission in the Administrative
and Instructional Staff--the corps to which were allotted most of the
regular officers in that period. In 1912 and 1913 he attended the Staff
College at Quetta in India and was on exchange duty in India and
England until the end of 1914 when, as a major, he was appointed to the
general staff of the 1st Australian Division. Afterwards General Gellibrand,
then a fellow major on the staff of the division, wrote of him as he was at
that time: "Short of stature, rugged in appearance, it took some little time
to discover that behind that broad forehead there was well seated an
unusual brain, and that the square jaw denoted not obstinacy and lack
of tact, but quiet resolution and a calm and definite power of expression."4
He joined the 1st Division at the beginning of its training in Egypt, landed
with it at Anzac, and served with it and later with the 2nd Division in the
Gallipoli campaign during which his explorations of the front line and in
no-man's land gave evidence of his personal bravery. Recognised as a very
able officer, in July 1916, when only 32, he was appointed senior staff
officer (G.S.O.1) of the 1st Division with the rank of lieut-colonel and
in June 1918 General Monash, who had just been appointed to command
the Australian Corps, took Blamey with him as his senior staff officer,
with the rank of brigadier-general.

Monash, himself a brilliant organiser, and one for whose intellect and
breadth of view the young Blamey had great respect, wrote of his chief
of staff that "he possessed a mind cultured far above the average, widely
informed, alert and prehensile. He had an infinite capacity for taking
pains." His orders, Monash added, "were accurate, lucid in language,
perfect in detail, and always an exact interpretation of my intention."5

When the war ended Blamey, though he was only 34, was one of the
most senior of those regular Australian officers whose wartime experience
had been in command or in general staff appointments. In 1920 he was
appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff in Australia, and from 1922
to 1925 served as Australian representative at the War Office in London.
Soon after his return to Australia he was appointed Chief Commissioner
of Police in Victoria, where recently the police force had passed through
a dangerous crisis and for a time had been on strike. He held this appointment
until 1936 when he resigned and was replaced by a professional police officer.
General Monash's praise did no more than justice to the swiftness and
clarity of Blamey's mind, his quick appreciation of the essentials of any

--46--

problem that faced him and his power of logical analysis and clear
decision. The political aspects of a military problem were within his
grasp. He won the regard of almost all the political leaders with whom
he was in close touch because he was above all a realist and could offer
them a well-defined line of policy, clearly and firmly presented. By
experience and temperament he was well fitted to cope with the problems
of a commander of a Dominion expeditionary force and to steer a course
between his loyalty to the Ministers at home and a perhaps conflicting
loyalty to a British or Allied commander-in-chief in the field. In his time
as chief of Monash's staff the A.I.F. had fought next to French, British,
Canadian, and American troops in circumstances often calling for diplomatic
judgment in balancing the interests of his country with the general
interest. It was this quality and experience which led old A.I.F. chiefs to
back him in 1939 for command of the Second A.I.F.

A gap in his otherwise wide experience was the brevity of his service
as a regimental officer. In France he had commanded a battalion for
three weeks and a brigade for six; otherwise his service had been on the
staff. And in any event he had qualities of temperament that would
probably have ensured that he achieved greater success as a staff officer or
senior commander than as a leader of a unit or a formation. As a junior
he kept to himself and made few close friends. In later life, to those who
crossed his path he was hard and unsympathetic. Insubordination or
criticism were not forgiven. His juniors were more likely to fear than
love him, for he lacked Birdwood's ability to win a deeply affectionate
response from his subordinates. The rank and file regarded him as a tough
leader of undoubted capacity and were ready to trust his decisions; but
to many of them the fact that he had the reputation of being a bon viveur
was a bar to warmer feelings. Although when he addressed the troops
he almost invariably spoke wisely and impressively, he had little talent
for--probably no interest in--the astute and carefully managed words and
gestures when moving among his men that help to create in the soldier's
mind a picture of the good general.

Two of the infantry brigade commanders whom Blamey chose--Allen
and Morshead--had led battalions in the war of 1914-18 when they were
still in their twenties. The third, Savige,6 after service as an N.C.O. at
Gallipoli and as a subaltern in France, had commanded a small independent
force in action in Kurdistan in 1918. Allen of the 16th was a
chartered accountant by profession and a devoted amateur soldier who
had been first commissioned in 1913 at the age of 19 under the universal
training system. At 24 he was leading his battalion (the 45th) in the
battle of Dernancourt, for the last six years he had commanded the 14th
Infantry Brigade. Blunt in speech, honest as the day, choleric yet kindly,
completely without affectation or pomposity, he was a leader of a kind
that appeals immediately to Australians. His military lore was drawn

--47--

from experience rather than study, and was based on a wide and sympathetic
knowledge of men in battle. Because of his short stature and
heavy build he was affectionately nicknamed "Tubby".

Savige had returned from the previous war late and had had to struggle
to re-establish himself in civil life, eventually founding a successful business
in the city of Melbourne. This experience, combined with his warm and
sympathetic nature, made him a leader in the Legacy Club movement. He
also found time to serve in the militia in which, in 1935, he was appointed
to command the 10th Brigade. He was a skilful manager of men, using
an easy friendly manner and a slanginess of speech to decrease the distance
that separated him from his subordinates. He was a sage leader in battle
whose approach to all problems was practical and objective. He could
write clearly and interestingly and enjoyed writing, whether it was orders
and doctrine for future operations or accounts of past battles; he had a
sense of history and the doings of his commands were usually more fully
recorded than those of companion formations.

The third brigadier, Morshead, was by 1918 standards the senior of
the three. He had been a young captain at the landing on Gallipoli, had
commanded a battalion from April 1916 onwards, and for seven years
had been a brigade commander in the militia. Before the war of 1914-18
he had been a schoolmaster, and after it became a branch manager of the
Orient Line, but continued to devote himself to spare-time soldiering with
keen enthusiasm.7 To each brigade was allotted a regular officer as its
brigade major: I. R. Campbell,8 to the 16th Brigade, B. W. Pulver1 to the
17th, and (in January 1940) A. R. Garrett2 to the 18th.

Blamey chose to command his artillery E. F. Herring,3 a leading
Melbourne barrister who had served with distinction in the British Army
in the previous war, having been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford when it
began. Herring had joined the militia in 1922, and for ten years had
commanded artillery regiments.

When the brigadiers began to choose commanding officers for their
units they found among their fellow officers some hesitation due to a
conviction that the new division was merely the nucleus of a wartime
"regular" army and no more likely to go abroad than were the militia
formations. One officer Allen sought as a battalion commander wished
to wait until an armoured force was formed; others were on the verge of
promotion to the command of brigades in the militia and were unwilling

--48--

to accept battalions in the new force; one failed in the medical test (but
passed a later test and served through four arduous campaigns). In
Victoria, Savige decided that he would recommend three commanding
officers who had seen active service, including one from the cavalry (for
which no place had been provided in the new division except in the
mechanised reconnaissance regiment--the equivalent of the divisional
cavalry of 1914) and one who belonged to the new generation. Morshead,
a Sydney man, had the difficult task of selecting commanding officers
from the less populous States, and consequently men whom he was not
likely to know personally.

Finally, of the twelve battalion commanders chosen, eight had served
in the first A.I.F. and four had been too young to do so. The upper age
limit of 45 for lieut-colonels was not strictly observed and the ages of a
number of officers in lower ranks also exceeded the limits that had been
set, sometimes because no other suitable applicants were available. To
have strictly observed the limits would have excluded practically all majors
and captains who had served in 1914-18, yet some of the unit commanders
wished to have two or three such officers to provide a leaven of
experience. The oldest battalion commander, for example, was J. W.
Mitchell4 who at 26 had commanded the 8th Battalion in France and
who at 48 was given the 2/8th to form; the youngest was J. E. G.
Martin,5 35, appointed to form the 2/9th (Queensland) Battalion. Command
of the mechanised reconnaissance regiment, later to be named the
divisional cavalry regiment, was given to M. A. Fergusson,6 43, who had
served in the artillery in the First A.I.F. and in 1939 commanded a light
horse regiment in Victoria. Two out of the four artillery commanders
first chosen were too young to have served in the last A.I.F. The commanding
officers of the technical arms were citizen soldiers who had
served in the last war and who had relevant professional qualifications.
The senior engineer officer was C. S. Steele,7 a consulting engineer of
Melbourne in civil life; the chief signals officer, J. E. S. Stevens,8 a senior
officer in the Postmaster-General's Department. N. B. Loveridge,9 who
was appointed to command the Army Service Corps was a militiaman who
had been a subaltern in the corps on Gallipoli in 1915.

--49--

Blamey chose as his senior staff officer or "G.I" (first-grade general
staff officer) Lieut-Colonel Rowell, who has been mentioned earlier.
Rowell's service in the previous war had been brief; he had been invalided
to Australia after six months' service as a subaltern in a light horse
regiment on Gallipoli. Between the wars he graduated at the Staff College
in England and was the first Duntroon man to attend the Imperial Defence
College, training ground of future senior commanders.1 He was clear and
incisive in thought, sensitive in feeling, frank and outspoken in his approach
to men and to problems. Five recent years of service either at English
staff colleges or on exchange duty made it probable that wherever he
went his opposite numbers in British formations would be men with whom
he had previously worked and played. The Assistant Adjutant and
Quartermaster-General, or senior administrative officer of the division was
Colonel G. A. Vasey,2 who had served as an artillery officer and later as
a brigade major in the First A.I.F. in 1915-18, graduated at the Staff
College at Quetta in 1930, and spent more than two years with the
Indian Army from 1934 to 1937. Highly strung, thrustful, hard working,
Vasey concealed a deeply emotional even sentimental nature behind a
mask of laconic and blunt speech. Although he was appointed to head the
administrative staff there burned within him a desire to lead Australians
as a commander. Both he and Rowell were not only efficient soldiers but
men of commanding temperament and wide talent.3

So intricate was the equipment problem facing the new force that to
generalise about it too broadly can be misleading. During the years of
shortage such generalisation was the fashion among publicists and
politicians who sought a simple answer to a complex situation. One critic
would discover that the panacea was the dive-bomber, another that the
Allied armies needed only more tanks to win an early victory, or a larger
anti-tank gun, or new tactics, or more fighter aircraft, or more "Tommy
guns". These suggested solutions overlooked the fact which soldiers had
for years been underlining, that to face a German army, for example, on
equal terms, a force must have a large variety of weapons, vehicles and
other equipment. A commander might have tanks and guns in plenty,
but for lack of telephone wire, or water waggons, or spare parts for motor
trucks, or bridging material, the battle could be lost.

Since the early years of the century a basic principle of defence agreements
between the members of the British Commonwealth was that they

--50--

should organise and equip their forces similarly. In effect this meant that
the Dominions should adopt British equipment and organisation because
Britain alone carried out the research and experiment upon which changes
could be founded, and this they had largely done. In 1939, however,
the British Army was in process of discarding her 1918 weapons and
re-equipping with new weapons of almost every category. This re-equipment
necessitated a radical reorganisation of the division and this had been
carried out in some regular divisions of the British Army. In Australia,
however, the organisation of the fighting units differed in only minor
respects from that of 1918. The problem which faced the staff was
whether to adopt the new organisation in the hope that, later, the force
would receive the new equipment, or to adhere to the old organisation,
under which Australia could provide most of her own needs--a problem
complicated by the fact that Australia had offered to equip the first brigade
group of the new force herself, while the remainder were to be equipped
from British factories. The final decision was a compromise: to adopt
some features of the new organisation and retain some of the old. For
example, each of the three infantry brigades at the outset included four
battalions, not three as in the new British Army. In consequence of this
and other differences between the Australian and British organisation the
establishment of the 6th Division was 16,528, which was 3,336 more than
that of a British division.

A second problem was one which had faced the staff in 1914, namely
to organise a division in which quotas of all arms were provided by
each State. This was done by following closely the organisation of the
1st Division of the First A.I.F. Thus the 16th Brigade, like the 1st Brigade
of 1914, was to consist of four battalions raised in N.S.W., the 2/1st, the
2/2nd, 2/3rd and 2/4th, the prefix 2/ distinguishing them from the 1st,
2nd, 3rd and 4th Battalions, which were among the N.S.W. battalions
of the militia and to which belonged the Battle Honours of the corresponding
units of the old A.I.F.4 The 17th Brigade (2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th
and 2/8th Battalions) was to be recruited in Victoria. In the 18th
Brigade, the 2/9th Battalion and two companies of the 2/12th were to be
recruited in Queensland, the 2/10th in South Australia, the 2/11th in
Western Australia and the remainder of the 2/12th in Tasmania.5 The
recruiting of the reconnaissance regiment, the artillery and other arms
were allotted similarly among the States, an unwieldy procedure but one
which local sentiment demanded.6

It was decided that the shoulder patch of each unit should be identical
with that of the equivalent unit in the First A.I.F., but with a narrow

--51--

border of grey cloth to distinguish the new units from similarly numbered
units of the militia. Later another outward sign of membership of the A.I.F.
was added--the word "Australia" in metal at the outer edge of each
shoulder strap.

Nevertheless, beyond the system of numbering described above, the
shoulder patch, and an instruction that commanders of A.I.F. units were
to choose their officers from certain groups of militia units (thus avoiding
competition) no effective link was established between the A.I.F. and the
home army, with unhappy results that became apparent within a few
weeks and were to persist until the end of the war. When describing
the mutinies that followed the disbandment of Australian battalions in
the previous war, Bean7 recorded that General White always strongly
wished that it had been possible to tie the A.I.F. battalions to the corresponding
regiments of the citizen forces in Australia, "so that the home
regiment fed battalions or even companies overseas as in the New
Zealand." It was perhaps surprising that commanders and staffs, generally
so anxious to follow British military tradition, should again have discarded
the British regimental system whereby the number of battalions in each
regiment was increased or decreased as the occasion demanded, but each
new battalion inherited the history of and was formed and maintained
by an historic regiment.

Although, in the 6th Division of 1939, the old organisation was followed
in that the brigades had four battalions, the individual battalions were
ordered to adopt the British shape soon after their formation. Thus, at
the outbreak and after, Lieut-Colonel Cook's8 5th Battalion of the militia
at South Melbourne consisted of a headquarters wing which was chiefly
administrative, two rifle companies, equipped also with a light machine-gun
to each platoon, and a support company which included a platoon armed
with mortars and two armed with Vickers machine-guns. But, after the
first few weeks, the 2/5th Battalion, which Cook was chosen to command,
consisted of a headquarters company of six platoons (signals, mortar,
carrier, pioneer, anti-aircraft, and transport and administrative), and four
rifle companies each of three platoons, each of three sections. Eventually,
when the weapons were available, each section would possess one of the
new Bren light machine-guns, a lighter, more accurate and more rugged
weapon than the Lewis; each platoon would have, in addition, a 2-inch
mortar and one of the new single-shot anti-tank rifles firing a 1/2-inch
bullet. The mortar platoon would be armed with two 3-inch mortars, the
carrier platoon with ten carriers armed with Brens.

Another innovation was the addition to the division of the mechanised
cavalry regiment, mentioned above, which was to be equipped with forty-
four carriers and twenty-eight light tanks, the carriers armed each with a

--52--

Bren and an anti-tank rifle, the tanks each with a heavy and a medium
machine-gun--a belt-fed gun firing a .303 bullet.

The artillery units also were reorganised to conform with the new
British tables. Whereas the militia artillery "brigades" included two
batteries of 18-pounder guns and one of 4.5-inch howitzers, the new units
would be called "regiments"' and consist of two batteries each of twelve
of the new 25-pounders which could do the work both of gun and howitzer.
Pending the arrival of the new guns an alternative organisation provided
that each battery of the Australian regiments included eight 18-pounders
and four howitzers. The division included also an anti-tank regiment, to
be equipped with 2-pounder guns. To carry its heavy equipment, its stores
and ammunition, each division was to have 3,163 vehicles, including 349
30-cwt and 206 3-ton lorries. Australia could raise and train a division
on the new model but only partly equip it out of local resources.

Footnotes

3.
They were relieved of this duty in the following month by detachments from seven garrison
battalions quickly recruited from men who had served in the old AIF. By January there were eight such battalions with a total strength of 4,967.

7.
"There would obviously not be sufficient manpower and industrial resources to meet all demands, therefore there was a tendency to go slow for a bit." Maj-Gen de Guingand, Operation Victory (1947), p. 27. De Guingand was at this time military secretary to the British Secretary for War, Mr Hore-Belisha.

8.
At a conference of the Federal executive of the Labour party in May 1939 Tasmanian delegates had advocated compulsory training for home defence. However, the party's program when war broke out still included the abolition of all clauses of the Defence Act relating to compulsory training and "no raising of forces for service outside the Commonwealth, or participation or promise of participation in any future overseas war, except by decision of the people."

5.
Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Sep 1939. It was on 28 Sep that the Canadian Minister for National Defence announced that Canada (less preoccupied than Australia by the possibility of war in the East) would send a division overseas.

6.
For example the GOC of the 2nd Div was I. G. Mackay who had commanded a brigade in 1918 and his three infantry brigadiers, L. J. Morshead, J. J. Murray and A. S. Allen, had all commanded battalions in action.

9.
At the same time it approved the transfer of Squires' two principal staff officers, Jess, the
Adjutant-General, to be Chairman of the Manpower Committee, a post hitherto held by Blamey, and Phillips, the Quartermaster-General and Master-General of Ordnance, to be Inspector of Coast and Anti-aircraft Defences. They were replaced by two younger officers, Col C. G. N. Miles as Adjutant-General, and Col E. K. Smart as Quartermaster-General. Col T. R. Williams became Master-General of Ordnance.

For pages 13-16:

1.
For example on 1 Mar 1923 G. A. Vasey, who had been a maj in the AIF in 1917-19, was promoted to the substantive rank of rapt in the Staff Corps. On 31 May 1923 K. W. Eather was commissioned lieut in the 53 Bn of the militia at the age of 21. Eather reached the rank of lt-col commanding a battalion on 1 Jul 1933. Vasey was promoted to the substantive rank of maj in the Staff Corps on 1 Mar 1935.

2.
Maj C. E. Prior, to command 2/1 MG Bn. By 23 Jan, 47 of the 331 officers of the Staff Corps and 9 of the 233 quartermasters of the Instructional Corps had been appointed
to the AIF.

3.
"All this," said one sage and senior citizen soldier, "bound them up into a close corporation, so that if you touched one of them you hurt them all."

1.
The following Australian soldiers had attended this college between 1928 and 1939 : Lavarack, Wynter, Sturdee, Northcott, Rowell, Bridgeford. In 1928 Mr F. G. Shedden, later Secretary of the Defence Department, also attended the course.

4.
Where no corresponding unit existed in the First AIF the prefix 2 was not used at the outset, e.g. 1st Anti-Tk Regt, 1st AGH, 1st Anti-Aircraft Regt. Eventually, however, all AIF units were prefixed by the 2 to avoid confusion with militia units. The practice has generally been followed in this history of using the prefix with all AIF units which later came to be so known.

5.
In the 1st Div of the First AIF half the 12 Bn was recruited in Tas and the other half in
WA and SA. The change was made in the Second AIF because of the relatively greater
increase in the population of Queensland between the wars.

6.
For example, in the Western Command, which had a population of only 470,000 and whose quota was 1,343, no fewer than 16 units or parts of units were raised, including such details as 59 offrs and men for the 2/1 MG Bn, 26 for the reconnaissance regt, and 36 for the 2 Gen Hosp.

7.
C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18,
Vol VI (1942), p. 940.

1.
The use of the words "regiment" and "brigade " in the British Army has long been a cause of misunderstanding to laymen in British countries and to soldiers abroad. Outside British countries the practice is almost universal of describing the unit in all arms as a battalion, the group of three battalions as a regiment. But in the British armies a unit of artillery or cavalry is described as a regiment, a group of three battalions as a brigade. The meaning of the word "regiment " in the British Army is further extended to denote the elastic organisation from which each British unit draws its traditions and its recruits. Thus the "2/Black Watch" means the second battalion of the Royal Highland Regiment.

Transcribed and formatted by Szymon Dabrowski for the HyperWar Foundation